Bun Kebab

SO. This week’s scheduled sandwich was to be the Brodje Kroket, but being short of time and long of hunger, we opted for the mighty Bun Kebab instead. A traditional Pakistani street food item, this is something that both Her Eminence and myself have never made before, SO WE WENT ALL OUT (I know, I know, we wanted to save time, so instead we SPENT ALL OF THE TIME). I made the ghee two days ago with a number of delightful videos and tutorials, found here and here! (this’s fantastic and charming) and many other places besides.

Her Eminence found a fabulous recipe at some Aussie website which differed a bit from the vision of the Vicomtesse re: the chutney. Because the called-for tamarind chutney was approximately $7,600,492.89 at our local too-posh grocery, we made our own with apples, garlic, onions, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, salt, & chili pepper. Oh, and of course, the ghee that we made – the ghee went in EVERYTHING, because it tastes like the imagination’s ideal version of Butter that your grandmother brags about eating every morning as a kid.

For the lentils, we DID scrimp a bit on that for time’s sake, and bought the blandest can of low-sodium lentil soup we could, and strained all the water and other mushy veggies off. What little herbs were added to the canned soup delight were of no import, Her Eminence and myself ruled. After skimming those off, we threw some glassy onions cooked in ghee, fresh ginger, jalapeno, cumin, cinnamon, and salt into the food processor along with the cheater lentils. chentils? After mixing those up, then the pound of ground lamb & an egg went in, and it was all ground to a fine, gross looking grayish paste. Sorry friends! It all already smelled amazing, though, so we knew we were onto something.

Per the instructions, we let the hand-formed, mushy, fluffy patties (that all still sounds really gross) cool & gel in the fridge for a while, and after sitting and catching up for a bit, we fried up some shredded ginger (also in the ghee, because DUH) and set that aside with all the other sandwich toppers.

OK. PHEW. THIS WAS ACTUALLY A LOT OF WORK. After an hour of stone chillin’, we took the patties out of the fridge and fried them up. This part, you guys, this part smelled really, really, really good. Ahhhhh. After AT LEAST eight months (perhaps upwards of ten minutes) of waiting and frying, we assembled the bun:

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Oh my god.

Impressions

These were both light and intense, delicate and heavy-hitting. The fried ginger added a dimensionality to it that neither of us was expecting, and the fresh cucumber, tomato & superthin jalapeno slices were complex and so, so good. The homemade chutney added depth and sweetness, and the fried egg (!) on top, which Her Eminence and I both thought was superfluous, ended up contributing a lot of richness to what was by itself a rather delicate affair. This was up there with the Bauru. It’s hard to use much hyperbole here because it was just a solid, delicious, incredible sandwich.

Do you immediately want another of this sandwich?

YES. yes. yes. Planning on eating just one (basically a burger), we instead each ate two. Good gravy, my friends, this was a perfect sandwich. Yes, lots of prep, but just totally incredible, so impressed with how good this was. it was so good! sorry guys!!